Prom Makeup: Light Pretty Look using UD Naked 3

Hey internet people :). I figured since my main focus on this blog is makeup, that I should probably do some kind of makeup look, so I bring you this. I'm not entirely sure how to describe this, except that it's a very light look, but I think it would work quite well for any formal occasions you may have coming up, in fact this is one of my practice looks for my Grad Ball coming up in a couple of weeks. Hope you enjoy :).

 Closeup of the eye... strange purple line is in fact a vein on my eyelid, not eyeshadow... The joys of very pale skin

 So, because I used tape to create quite a sharp line for the eyeliner, this was one of the few times I did the eyes before the face. To start off, after the tape, I used Rimmel Undercover Primer as a base and swept a light layer of face powder all over the lid to make the other shadows blend a little better. 
Then I opened up my Urban Decay Naked 3 palette. I started off using Limit (a light matte rosey colour) in the crease as a transition colour, then I placed Trick (a pinky copper shimmer colour) all over the lid. Then I blended Nooner (a matte pinky-brown colour) a little lower in the crease for more definition and patted Darkside (a dark kind of taupey mauve colour) on the outside corner of the lid and blended it out, I also used these two colours on the lower lashline as well. For a little extra shimmer I swept elf Mineral Eyeshadow in Sweet (a very light pink glittery coulour) over the lid and in the corner with a really fluffy brush and used Strange as a brow highlight.
After all that I used a black gel liner on the upper lid, making a very small wing , a white kohl on the lower waterline, applied my mascara, filled in the brows and went on the the rest... Obviously after actually taking the tape off :P.

  

After foundation and concealer, I used elf Studio Cream Blush in Vixen on the cheekbone area, Soap & Glory Hocus Focus liquid highlighter on the tops of my cheekbones. Then I lightly contoured the cheekbones  and the forehead with elf Studio Cool Bronzer.
For the lips I kept with the kind of muted pink tones and used elf Studio Matte Lip Colour in Tea Rose and elf Mineral Lip Gloss in Sorority Girl to finish off and that was pretty much it... Tah Dah!!
Cheers Guys :)

My Everyday Skincare Routine

Hey people of the internet :). So my blog seems pretty empty at the moment, and I figure a good starting point is probably my skincare routine because it gives you guys a bit of background on my attitude towards my skincare and how my skin tends to act. I have combination/oily skin, so it gets pretty oily in the T-zone, but is either normal or dry everywhere else, it's also annoyingly prone to blackheads and tiny little whiteheads, but I don't get those huge cystic spots very often so that's lucky I guess :). I like to keep my skincare pretty simple, I avoid ridiculously harsh chemicals and anything that'll strip my skin too much and focus on things that'll keep my skin clear and hydrated. So, without further ado, have my skincare routine :).

Nip+Fab Deep Cleansing Fix: As I'm sure you've guessed, I use this as my main cleanser every morning and night. I feel pretty confident saying this is by far the best cleanser I've used so far. It's a very thick, very creamy cleanser, but it really gets the job done. It doesn't give me that dry, tight feeling a lot of cleansers do, but it really makes my skin feel clean and nourished. It has tea tree oil in it, so it helps with any breakouts too. Now, according to the instructions, you can use this as an overnight mask for moisture or as a spot treatment, I haven't tried that yet so I can't really comment, but  you can also use it as a 10 minute mask, which I did about an hour ago and I like it as a mask too. So if you're a fan of multi-use products then that's a plus too. I got this on sale for £5.3 from Boots, usually its £7.95, which is more than I would usually spend on a cleanser, but given it's a bloody good cleanser and you get 300ml so it'll last forever, I'd still say that was a pretty good deal.

Garnier Micellar Cleansing Water: There's not much I can say about this that won't already have been said, seems like everyone in the beauty section of the internet loves this stuff and I can get why, it's a fantastic makeup remover. It gets everything off, doesn't dry my skin out, and on days when I'm not wearing makeup I'll sometimes use this as my only cleanser... only on really lazy days though... promise :P. It's £3.99 for 400ml and you can get it more or less anywhere that sells Garnier.

Elf Makeup Mist & Set: Right, I know this should technically be considered as a makeup-type product, but I honestly find it does nothing to keep my makeup in place, it takes away the powdery look, but that's really it. So I use this more as a toner after cleansing. It has a whole heap of ingredients that are awesome for moisturising and soothing skin like Aloe, Green Tea, Cucumber and Vitamins A, C and E. I don't normally use toners, they tend not to do very much for me, or they're full of alcohol and just dry everything out, but for something not actually meant to be used as a toner, it works really well as one. My skin just feels much more comfortable when I use this stuff. It's also dirt cheap, you can pick this up for £3.95 on the eyeslipsface UK website :).

Nivea Daily Essentials Light Moisturising Day Cream for Normal/Combo Skin: Again, as I'm sure you can guess, this right here is my day cream. It's pretty standard as far as daytime moisturisers go, it has SPF 15, which is always a good thing, and it has Vitamin E and Lotus Extract. It's light enough to go under makeup without really impacting the staying power, it's very moisturising but it doesn't make my skin feel oily, it's definitely not mattifying, but I don't really like that in a moisturiser so that's all good. Like most of my skincare products, it's also dirt cheap, you can get this for £3.99 for anywhere that sells Nivea stuff :).

Nivea Daily Essentials Regenerating Night Cream: Like the day cream, this one also has Vitamin E and Lotus Extract, however this also has Provitamin B5, to help skin regenerate during the night. I have no idea whether this actually does help to regenerate the skin, but I do love this night cream. I never actually used night creams til I bought this one, I always just figured my day cream would work and it was rather pointless to spend the extra money. Turns out I was wrong, this is a really really thick cream, I barely need anyof this and I can cover my whole face and neck with this stuff. It's not so thick that it makes me break out, but my skin just feels so soft, and so plump the morning after I use this. It's a really good option for a basic, really moisturising night cream, and it's pretty budget friendly too, it's only £4.35 :).

Boots Vitamin E Gentle Eye Cream: I'm starting to sense a theme here O_o, Like every other moisturiser in my routine, this is a light, hydrating cream with Vitamin E, this also comes with the every-handy addition of an SPF of 15 so I use this as my morning eye cream. It also claims to reduce the appearance of fine lines, puffiness and dark circles. I don't really get very puffy undereyes, and I don't notice any difference in my dark circles, but it does really help keep the dreaded fine lines at bay, and it doesn't slip so my makeup sits pretty well on top of it. Again, it's pretty cheap, I got this on the Boots website for £2.54.

Simple Kind to Skin Soothing Eye Balm: I only use this eye cream at night, because it doesn't have the SPF I figure that makes sense. Texture wise, this is a lot lighter and thinner than the other, but it feels much more nourishing and has a lot more ingredients. For the most part, the ingredients in this aren't very different from my other skincare stuff, it has Vitamin E and Provitamin B5, but it also has Jojoba Oil, Shea Butter and Bisabolol. There's not really much I can say about this that won't feel like repeating myself, it's rich and moisturising but not heavy and annoying, and it's only £3.99 so yay for that :).

Nip+Fab Glycolic Fix Serum: This is the most expensive product I use, it usually costs £14.95, but I got it on sale for £9.97. Essentially, this is a serum with 4% glycolic acid, Aloe Vera and PoreAway (DUN DUN DUUUNNN) which to me sounds like an ingredient you'd find in bathroom cleaner but hey ho. It's supposed to give you a visible reduction in fine lines, wrinkles and pores within two weeks, I've been using this for around a month and I can't really disagree with any of that. I use this before my night cream and I really notice a difference in my skin, it just feels so much smoother. This is the only really exfoliating product I use, I do have the Rio Sonicleanse (pretty much a cheaper version of the Clarisonic) but I'm leaving that out while I use this stuff to avoid any damage. This is a great product and even though, it's more expensive than anything else here, it's still a pretty reasonable price, given that it actually works, on me at least :).

Elf Zit Eraser: Finally we come to the end of this list! This is my main spot treatment type product and is one of my favourite to date. It has a huge amount of acne fighting ingredients like Salicylic Acid, Witch Hazel, Camphor, Tea Tree and Green Tea. I have two ways of using this I'll either use it on specific spots, or I'll use a VERY thin layer (it'll be quite drying if used too liberally) in areas with clumps of spots or blackheads. Like all elf products, it's also really cheap, £3.95 on eyeslipsface.

So, that's my skincare routine, I keep things relatively simple and nourishing, which seems to really work best for me. I'm gonna leave this here, I think I've rambled enough and I hope this was helpful to someone.

Cheers guys :)

Review: Garnier 5 Second Perfect Blur Primer

So, since my Grad Ball is a mere three weeks away, I figured it would be a good idea to switch up some of my products as there were a few in my normal routine that worked well, but were not quite Grad Ball material. First on my list was primer, usually I use Nivea Daily Essentials Hydration Primer, and I do still adore it for creating a good base for foundation, but I was intrigued by the "optical blurring effect" of the Garnier option.

I bought this in my local Tesco for £12.99, but I imagine you could pick it up anywhere selling Garnier products. It claims to visibly blur wrinkles, imperfections, open pores and shine using light reflecting particles. It seems to be marketed more towards mature skin, but my large pores and fine lines seemed like a decent enough challenge for these claims :P. 

The texture of this primer is quite bizarre, at least in my previous primer experiences. It has a very light, almost whipped texture, but it's quite dry. This did make me a little nervous at first, my T-zone gets a little oily, but anything this dry in texture usually leaves foundation looking quite cakey and chalky on me.

Before: After moisturiser, before any make up had been applied 

After make up.

I was pretty impressed with this in general. According to the box, it can be used on its own just to lightly blur pores and lines, but I didn't really notice much blurring until I had done my full foundation routine. My main complaint with my Nivea primer was that it didn't really stop my concealer from creasing, I use a very creamy correcter under my eyes (Soap and Glory Kick Ass concealer), so it always ended up gathering in my fine lines and just not really helping anybody. The first thing I noticed this time though was how well it smoothed over the lines, I still needed to powder lightly, but it looked a lot smoother than if I had used my Nivea primer. On the rest of my face, it had helped blur my pores quite a bit, but it was a little drier than I usually go for in some places, not to the point where I was unhappy to have it on my face though and that could have just been some of the teething issues you get with a new product.

In the interest of a fair test, this picture was taken after around 12 hours of wear time, at around one in the morning. I was pretty chuffed with the end result, I hadn't actually looked in a mirror for around 8 of those 12 hours so I was pretty surprised that the only redness that had come through was around my nose, it definitely helped the lasting power of the foundation (L'Oreal True Match in C1, Rode Ivory). Also, the camera picked up much more shine than I could see just checking in the mirror, my pores still looked quite well blurred as well, adding more pro's to the already unbalanced scale.

To wrap this up, because it's two thirty in the morning and I would like to sleep some time tonight, I really liked this primer. It blurred my pores and fine lines, and generally made everything go on quite smooth, and held pretty well until well after I should have taken it off. My only complaint is the dryness of the product did make my skin look the teeniest bit powdery, but this was minor and could probably be fixed by either mixing it with a hydrating primer/moisturiser, or applying a more dewy foundation over the top.

Final rating: 8/10

Cheers guys :)